July 18, 2005
AP
MSNBC

CANCUN, Mexico - Jittery tourists clutching pillows streamed out of beachside hotels and headed inland Sunday as Hurricane Emily’s outer winds lashed the Yucatan peninsula at speeds of 145 mph. Earlier, the storm sideswiped Jamaica, where four people were swept away in a car.

Two people also were killed in a helicopter crash on the Gulf of Mexico as more than 15,500 workers were evacuated from offshore oil platforms.

The Category 4 storm pounded Jamaica’s southern coast, then made a jag to the south sparing the Cayman Islands before setting course for Mexico. The storm was expected to land near Cancun Sunday night or early Monday.
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The U.S. National Hurricane Center said the storm would probably weaken as it crossed the Yucatan peninsula on its way to the Gulf.

Emily was likely to make landfall again on Wednesday anywhere from northeastern Mexico to southern Texas, Jack Beven, the hurricane specialist at the Miami-based center said, but cautioned it was too early to make a precise prediction.

180,000 relocated ahead of storm

A fleet of buses was moving 30,000 tourists in the resort to temporary shelters, while 70,000 to 80,000 more people were being evacuated across the state of Quintana Roo.

Hundreds of mostly foreign tourists waited for the buses in a light drizzle. Others lay shoulder-to-shoulder on thin foam pads in a sweltering gymnasium near the center of Cancun, one of Mexico’s most popular tourist destinations known for its white-sand beaches, sprawling hotel complexes and all-night discos.

The evacuees were given free bottled water and sandwiches, but many gasped when a hard rain rattled the metal roof of the building. Some asked how long they would have to stay in the confines.

“It’s hot in here,” said Beth McGhee, 46, a tourist from Independence, Mo. “We feel like we’ve been kept in the dark until this morning. But we’re safe, and that’s what’s important.”

Cancun’s grim-faced mayor, Francisco Alor, said the city was preparing for a near-direct hit.

“This hurricane is coming with same force as Gilbert,” he said in reference to a notorious 1988 hurricane that killed 300 people in Mexico and the Caribbean.

Tourism and hotel officials had said guests of beachside hotels would be relocated to ballrooms and convention centers in larger, well-protected hotels, but the first wave of evacuees was ferried to gymnasiums and government schools.

Jamaica takes a pounding

In Jamaica, torrential rains drenched the south coast and washed away at least three houses, while a man, a woman, an infant boy and his 5-year-old sister were swept away in a car Saturday night. Searchers on Sunday found the four bodies trapped inside the car, which was filled with mud and other debris, police said.

The family had been driving through a flooded rural road in southwest Jamaica when a surge of water pushed them over a cliff.

The Cayman Islands escaped major damage Saturday. The islands and a handful of other Caribbean countries were devastated last year when three catastrophic hurricanes — Frances, Ivan and Jeanne — tore through the region with a collective ferocity not seen in years, causing hundreds of deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Emily was approaching the Yucatan peninsula at about 20 mph. It was expected to land near Cancun on Sunday night or early Monday.

The last time Cancun faced a mass evacuation was 1988, when the city and surrounding resort areas had only about 8,000 hotel rooms; that number has since grown to over 50,000.

Along the narrow spit of land that holds most of Cancun’s palatial hotels, most businesses were boarded up and traffic lights were removed in anticipation of the storm.

Tourists in Cozumel also were moved to more central accommodations and local residents prepared to flee their homes for shelters in schools and communities on the island, which lies almost directly in the hurricane’s projected path.

President Vicente Fox encouraged peninsula residents to seek shelter and not worry about leaving property and possessions unguarded.

Oil platforms evacuated

State oil company Pemex was removing the last few hundred workers from oil platforms on the Gulf of Mexico. Strong winds downed a helicopter participating in the evacuation on Saturday night, killing a pilot and co-pilot, the company said.

The platform evacuations closed 63 wells and halting the production of 480,000 barrels of oil per day.

Emily has unleashed heavy surf, gusty winds and torrential rains across the Caribbean, hitting hard Thursday at Grenada, where at least one man was killed when his home was buried under a landslide.

The storm trailed Hurricane Dennis, which killed at least 25 people in Haiti and 16 in Cuba earlier this month.

Forecasters have predicted up to 15 Atlantic tropical storms this year, including three to five major hurricanes. The hurricane season began June 1 and runs through Nov. 30.

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